the king his master, discovered Long-Island, NewYork, and the river which still bears his name; and afterwards sold the country, or rather his right, to the Dutch. Their writers contend, that Hudson was sent out by the East-India Company in 1609, to discover a north-west passage to China; and that having first discovered Delaware bay, he came hither, and penetrated up Hudson's river, as far north as the latitude of forty-three degrees. It is said, however, these marks, it amounted to one hundred and eighty-five, so that the cut was made in the year 1590, at least 17 years before Hudson's discovery of this country. It is well known that the natives had no iron tools before their acquaintance and intercourse with the Europeans, and it is this circumstance that involves me in the difficulty of accounting for its mark at that early period. Proof of the number of streaks grown over marks has often in our courts been allowed to ascertain its age. I have, therefore, been at some pains to discover its certainty, and can, from my own experience, declare that it amounts to demonstration. Among the variety of instances, the two following are the most remarkable:-In the year 1762, I was present when a number of trees were marked on the survey of the township of Kinderhook. In the year 1772, I re-surveyed these lines, and ordered several of those marks to be opened, and thereupon found that all those trees, though of different kinds, invariably counted ten streaks above the marks. I have, also, been employed in the year 1768 to re-survey the bounds of a patent, which appeared by the deputy surveyor's return to have been originally laid out for the patentee in the year 1738: to satisfy myself as to the certainty of the trees which were shown me as marked on his survey, I bored a beach tree, whereon the initial letters of his name appeared standing in the corner of one of the sides, and found that the streaks above it counted exactly thirty. I am, sir, your most obedient servant, New-York, May 3, 1775. ROBERT YATES. On inspecting the block I observed, that the rings of growth differed in their distance from each other, probably according to the variety of the years as more or less favorable. But if the age of the tree is to be computed by the fourth part of its diameter acquired in one hundred and eighty-five years, and was consequently for twenty-four inches over seven hundred and forty years old, how venerable our forests of pine in which there are many trees of three hundred and eighty-four feet in diameter[?], which must then be from one thousand to near fifteen hundred years old; and how many more they continue at a stand and on the decline before they fall, none can presume. The land most abounding with pine is light, dry and sandy, and where the trunks have rotted away they have knots which no weather seems to affect; yet in the repletion of the interstices with rosin or an unctuous substance that is very inflamable, and which the country people collect and use for lights to work by in long winter evenings. These are found where there is not the least appearance of a hillock for the trunk to which they originally belonged, and this leads to as remote antiquity for their first formation as for rocks and other permanent substances. Pliny says, "Vita arborum quærundarum immensa credi potest," but he mentions no species of trees with certainty of an age equal to what we conjecture of the American firs commonly called pitch pine. There is a white pine tree on the banks of Batton creek, in the township of Cambridge, in this province, of the diameter of seven feet. No fir as yet discovered exceeds four. that there was a sale, and that the English objected to it, though they for some time neglected to oppose the Dutch settlement of the country. In 1610, Hudson sailed again from Holland to this country, called by the Dutch, New-Netherlands; and four years after, the States General granted a patent to sundry merchants, for an exclusive trade on the North River, who, in 1614, built a fort on the west side, near Albany, which was first commanded by Henry Christiaens. Captain Argal was sent out by Sir Thomas Dale, governor of Virginia, in the same year, to dispossess the French of the two towns of Port-Royal and St. Croix, lying on each side of the bay of Fundy in Acadia, then claimed as part of Virginia.* In his return, he visited the Dutch on Hudson's river, who being unable to resist him, prudently submitted for the present to the king of England, and under him to the governor of Virginia. The very next year, they erected a fort on the southwest point of the island Manhattans, and two others in 1623 one called Good-Hope, on Connecticut river, and the other Nassau, on the east side of Delaware bay. The author of the account of NewNetherland† asserts that the Dutch purchased the lands on both sides of that river, in 1632, before the English were settled in those parts; and that they discovered a little fresh river, farther to the east, called Varsche Riviertie, to distinguish it from Connecticut river, known among them by the name of Varsche Rivier, which Vanderdonk also claims for the Dutch. *Charlevoix places this transaction in 1613. Vol. I. hist. of N. France in 12mo. p. 210. But Stith, whom I follow, being a clergyman in Virginia, had greater advantages of knowing the truth than the French jesuit. + The pamphlet is entitled, "Beschryvinghevan Virginia, Neiuw Nederland," &c. and was printed at Amsterdam in 1651. It contains two descriptions of the Dutch possessions. The first is a copy of that published by John de Laet, at Leyden. The second gives a view of this country several years after, in 1649. A short representation of the country of the Mahakuase Indians, written in 1644, by John Megapolensis, jun. a Dutch minister residing here, is annexed to that part of the pamphlet concerning New-Netherland. Determined upon the settlement of a colony, the States General made a grant of the country, in 1621, to the West-India Company. Wouter Van Twiller, arrived at fort Amsterdam, now New-York, and took upon himself the government, in June, 1629.— His style, in the patents granted by him, was thus, "We, director and council, residing in New-Netherland on the island Manhattans, under the government of their high mightinesses, the Lords States General of the United Netherlands, and the privileged West-India Company." In this time the NewEngland planters extended their possession westward as far as Connecticut river. Jacob Van Curlet, the commissary there, protested against it, and, in the second year of the succeeding administration, under William Kieft,* who appears first in 1638, a prohibition was issued, forbiding the English trade at fort Good-Hope; and shortly after, on complaint of the insolence of the English, an order of council was made for sending more forces there, to maintain the Dutch territories. Dr. Mather confesses, that the New-England men first formed their design of settling Connecticut river in 1635, before which time they esteemed that river at least one hundred miles from an English settlement; and that they first seated themselves there in 1636, at Hartford, near fort Good-Hope, at Weathersfield, Windsor and Springfield. Four years after, they seized the Dutch garrison, and drove them from the banks of the river, having first settled New-Haven in 1638, regardless of Keift's protest against it. The extent of New-Netherland was to Delaware, then called south river, and beyond it; for I find, in * We have no books among our Dutch records remaining in the Secretary's office, relating to state matters, before Kieft's time, nor any enrolment of patents, till a year after Van Twiller arrived here. Mr. Jacob Goelet supplied us with several extracts from the Dutch records. the Dutch records, a copy of a letter from William Kieft, May 6, 1638, directed to Peter Minuit,* who seems, by the tenor of it, to be the Swedish governor of New-Sweden, asserting, "that the whole south river of New-Netherlands had been in the Dutch possession many years, above and below, beset with forts, and sealed with their blood." Which, Kieft adds, has happened even during your administration "in New-Netherland, and so well known to you." The Dutch writers are not agreed in the extent of Nova Belgia or New-Netherland; some describe it to be from Virginia to Canada, and others inform us that the arms of the States General were erected at Cape Cod, Connecticut, and Hudson's river, and on the west side of the entrance into Delaware bay.' The author of the pamphlet mentioned in the notes gives Canada river for a boundary on the north, and calls the country, northwest from Albany, Terra Incognita. In 1640, the English, who had overspread the eastern part of Long-Island, advanced to Oysterbay. Kieft broke up their settlement in 1642, and fitted out two sloops to drive the English out of Schuylkill, of which the Marylanders had lately possessed themselves. The instructions, dated May 22, to Jan Jansen Alpendam, who commanded in that enterprise, are upon record, and strongly assert the right of the Dutch, both to the soil and trade there. The English from the eastward shortly after sent deputies to New-Amsterdam, for the accommodation of their disputes about limits, to whom the Dutch offered the *The anonymous Dutch author of the description of New-Netherland in 1649, calls him Minnewits; and adds, that in 1638 he arrived at Delaware with two vessels, pretending that he touched for refreshment in his way to the WestIndies; but that he soon threw of the disguise, by employing his men in erecting a fort. The same historian informs us of the murder of several Dutch men at South River, by the Indians, occasioned by a quarrel, concerning the taking away the States Arms, which the former had erected at the first discovery of the country; in resenting which, an Indian had been killed. If Kieft's letter alludes to this affair, then Minuit preceded Van Twiller, in the chief command here; and being perhaps disobliged by the Dutch, entered into the service of the queen of Sweden. following conditions, entered in their books exactly in these words: "Conditiones à D. Directore Gen. senatuys Novi Belgii, Dominis Weytingh atque Hill, Delegatis a nobili Senatu Hartfordiensi, oblatæ : "Pro agro nostro Hartfordiensi, annuo persolvent Præpotentiff. D. D. Ordinibus Foed. Provinciarum Belgicarum aut eorum vicariis, decimam partem reventús agrorum, tum aratro, tum ligone, aliove cultorum medio; pomariis, hortisq; oleribus dicatis, jugerum Hollandium non excedentibus exceptis ; aut decimarum loco, pretium nobile postea constituendum, tam diu quàm diu possessores ejusdem agri futuri erunt. Actum in arce Amstelodamensi in novo Belgio, Die Julii 9 Anno Christi 1642." We have no account that the English acceded to these proposals, nor is it probable, considering their superior strength, that they ever did: on the contrary they daily extended their possessions, and in 1643, the colonies of the Massachusett's Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut and New-Haven, entered into a league both against the Dutch and Indians, and grew so powerful as to meet shortly after, upon a design of extirpating the former. The Massachusett's Bay declined this enterprise, which occasioned a letter to Oliver Cromwell from William Hooke, dated at New-Haven, November 3, 1653, in which he complains of the Dutch, for supplying the natives with arms and ammunition, begs his assistance with two or three frigates, and that letters might be sent to the eastern colonies, commanding them to join in an expedition against the Dutch colony. Oliver's affairs would not admit of so distant an attempt;* but *The war between him and the States, which began in July, 1652, was concluded by a peace on the fifth of April, 1654. The treaty makes no particular mention of this country. If any part of it can be considered as relating to the American possessions, it is to be found in the two first articles, which are in these words: "Imprimis, it is agreed and concluded, that, from this day forwards, there be a true, firm, and inviolable peace, a sincere, intimate and close |